2020 Prayer Series

Introduction - Place of Prayer

Goal of the Christian life = Holiness.

Holiness is produced from Obedience; Prayer nourishes Obedience as it reframes our minds to desire obedience. Obedience can then unlock the riches of the Christian experience.

Knowledge is also important because without it, how can we know what God requires as absolute Truth (found in His Word). However, knowledge and truth remain abstract unless we commune with God in prayer.

It is at these times when the Holy Spirit teaches, inspires, and illumines “truth” from God’s Word to us. He, the Holy Spirit, mediates the Word of God, helping us to respond to the Father in prayer.

Prayer is Vital to a Christian

It should go without saying, but prayer has a vital place in the life of the Christian, and we treat this discipline as optional rather than mandatory (myself included). It is impossible to be a Christian and fail to pray.

Romans tells us that the spiritual adoption that has made us sons of God causes us to cry out in verbal expressions, “Abba! Father!”

CR

Prayer is to the Christian, what Breath is to life, how quickly we neglect this.

Prayer is Honest

It is interesting to think that prayer is difficult to do out of false motives. We can sometimes preach out of false motives, like false teachers, or Christians can participate in Christian activities out of false motives…but prayer is deeply honest.

Prayer is a Command

Not only is prayer a privilege, but a duty, and like any duty we may experience, it can be quite laborious. So like any duty, we can expect prayer to require work as we grow in maturity. It could mean forcing ourselves to pray, or scheduling times to pray in our calendars until it becomes a regular rhythm.

Prayer

Usually laziness in the duties of the Christian life are a result from the fall of mankind, and how often this is experienced in such an important duty as prayer is.

Prayer is

Yes, we can take comfort that God knows our hearts and hears our unspoken petitions, but this will never justify our disobedience of not praying. Sometimes the we truly cannot pray right

Illustration: Meet the Parents example “Dear baby Jesus, sweet sweet baby Jesus” or we turn into “KJV only people!”

Often at other times, we are deeply grieved and experience deep emotions in our lives; Sometimes we don’t know how or what to pray for in complicated situations. So it is in this we take comfort when we try to pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, and corrects our prayers before He takes them before the Father.

CR

Back to opening statements about holiness...

Prayer harnesses our obedience, and obedience produces holiness…so if you want your lives to be marked by holiness, you must pray. If you want reformation or revival of a culture, you must pray.

CR John Wesley once remarked that he didn’t think much of ministers who didn’t spend at least four hours per day in prayer.

CR Luther said that he prayed regularly for an hour every day except when he experienced a particularly busy day. Then he prayed for two hours.

CR Martin Luther -

John Wesley once remarked that he didn’t think much of ministers who didn’t spend at least four hours per day in prayer. Luther said that he prayed regularly for an hour every day except when he experienced a particularly busy day. Then he prayed for two hours.

R. C. Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things?, vol. 3, The Crucial Questions Series (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2009), 4.

TS - It’s current times like we are experiencing today with the spread of a nasty and mysterious virus that we often are baffled that nothing occuring today escaped God’s notice. Nothing oversteps the boundaries of His power.

Prayer to the Sovereign God...

CR Sproul - “If I thought even for a moment that a single molecule were running loose in the universe outside the control and domain of almighty God, I wouldn’t sleep tonight.”

But how does God exercise that control and manifest that authority? How does God bring to pass the things He sovereignly decrees.

CR Augustine said that nothing happens in this universe apart from the will of God and that, in a certain sense, God ordains everything that happens.

What Augustine was not trying attempt to remove man’s responsibility for their action (known as fatalism, God is sovereign card), but his teaching raises an important question to us today:

“If God is sovereign over the actions and intents of men, why pray at all?” Which draws us all as a church to a vital question: “Does prayer really change anything?”

Allow me to help us at this moment and tell you that the same Sovereign God commands us all by His holy Word that we pray. This is not an optional practice, but a required command!

If God commands us to pray, then we must pray. Not only does God command us to pray, but also invites us to make our requests known.

CR

CR

Time and time again, the Bible says that prayer is an effective tool in the Christian experience. It is useful; it works.

CR Calvin - Calvin makes some profound observations regarding prayer - “Still it is very important for us to call upon him: First, that our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve him, while we become accustomed in every need to flee to him as to a sacred anchor. Secondly, that there may enter our hearts no desire and no wish at all of which we should be ashamed to make him a witness, while we learn to set all our wishes before his eyes, and even to pour out our whole hearts. Thirdly, that we be prepared to receive his benefits with true gratitude of heart and thanksgiving, benefits that our prayer reminds us come from his hand.”

Who is God...

Still it is very important for us to call upon him: First, that our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve him, while we become accustomed in every need to flee to him as to a sacred anchor. Secondly, that there may enter our hearts no desire and no wish at all of which we should be ashamed to make him a witness, while we learn to set all our wishes before his eyes, and even to pour out our whole hearts. Thirdly, that we be prepared to receive his benefits with true gratitude of heart and thanksgiving, benefits that our prayer reminds us come from his hand.

So in light of “who God is, and what God does,” is in the greatest sense for His glory alone! Indeed, pray is for God’s glory, but also for our benefit (IN THAT ORDER). And what happens when God is glorified, man benefits!

So we pray glorifying who He is, and that our utterances would bring Him glory, and we also pray in order to receive the benefits of prayer from His sovereign hand.

Providence of God...

Another profound aspect of prayer is that it is a discourse with the personal God Himself.

Think about it…here we sit speaking words to a God who has your past, present and future under His gaze, He knows what is in our minds…but even still, we are commanded to articulate to Him what is in our minds.

Yes, prayer is for our benefit, even in light of God knowing the beginning and the end. It is considered a privilege to bring our finite utterances into the glory of His infinite presence.

Yes, prayer is for our benefit, even in light of God knowing the beginning and the end. It is considered a privilege to bring our finite utterances into the glory of His infinite presence.

In the storms or blessings in this life, God says, “Come. Speak to me. Make your requests known to me.” So we come in order to know Him and to be known by Him.

ILLUSTRATION - Have you ever thought at times, “If God knows everything, why pray?”

The issue with that type of thinking is that it is extremely one-dimensional…but in reality, prayer is multi-dimensional.

God’s sovereignty casts no shadow over the prayer of adoration.

God’s foreknowneldge does not negate the prayer of praise.

MP - So the beauty of praying knowing that God knows everything before we say it, is that it doesn’t actually limit our prayers, but it enhances the beauty of our praise!

ILLUSTRATION - In my own marriage, I am extremely close to my wife (as long as the steelers lose)…There are many times when we are interacting and I know what she is going to say before she says it (women are from mars, so obviously sometimes I have NO IDEA, what she says…), although, sometimes I get lucky. Think…If this is true of man, how much more true is it of God!?

Prayer gives us and unfathonable privledge of sharing our innermost sorrows or praises with God, who wants us to vocalize, this is true communion! This is communication.

I believe that the most fundamental encouragment of prayer while understanding God’s sovereignty is that it bring intense thanksgiving. The more we understand God’s sovereignty in our lives, the more our prayers should be equally filled with thanksgiving.

How great is it to know that when we come to the Father in confession, we should deeply greive and feel guilt over our sin, but we should also have the proper Thanksgiving knowing that the blood of Jesus has pardoned us, and in prayer we cling to Jesus as our mediator.

Does Prayer Change Anything?

ILLUSTRATION - Does prayer make any difference? Does it really change anything? Sometimes we even go as far to think, “Does prayer change God’s mind?” To the latter, the biblical answer is simply, No, prayer does not change God’s mind.

Another profound aspect of prayer is that it is a discourse with the personal God Himself.

But after reflecting upon prayer, and thinking if it changes things I would answer 100%!

Biblically speaking, we can observe there are different occurances that God has decreed from all eternity, which will inevitably come to pass.

Think about it…here we sit speaking words to a God who has your past, present and future under His gaze, He knows what is in our minds…but even still, we are commanded to articulate to Him what is in our minds.

Prayer regarding those things, it wouldn’t matter if we banned every Christian in the world to pray for it, and nothing would change what God, in His hidden counsel, has determined to do.

ILLUSTRATION - If we prayed for Jesus not to return, He would still return.

BUT WAIT! Brent, doesn’t the bible say that when 2 or 3 agree on anything, they’ll get what they ask!? Well, yes, it does, but only in context with the passage which is talking about church discipline, not prayer requests!

So when we pray, we must allow the bible to govern our approach, and not isolate one passage from the rest, and consider the whole of scripture.

BUT WAIT! Brent, doesn’t the bible say that from time to time God repents? Well, yes, the OT does say this.

CR Jonah - The book of Jonah tells us that God “repented of” the judgment He has planned for the people of Nineveh (). This usage of “repentance” in describing God, in what theologians call “anthropomorphic” language.

Obviously the Bible doesn’t mean that God repented in the way we would repent as created/finite human beings. Otherwise, we could rightfully assume that God had sinned and theefore would need a savior Himself.

What it does mean is that God removed the threat of judgement from the people. The hebrew word actually means “comforted” or “eased” in this case.

So we can undestand that God was comforted and felt at ease that the people had turned from their sin, in-turn, He revoked the sentance of judgement He originally imposed.

ILLUSTRATION - Think of God the one hanging His sword of judgment over people’s heads, and they repent and He withholds HIs judgment, has He really changed His mind?

The bible teaches us that God does not change His mind, for God does not change. But the bible also teaches us that THINGS change. They change according to His sovereign will alone.

There are various secondary means which come into play when within His sovereign will which writes history. The prayer of God’s people is one of those means He uses to bring these things to come to pass in this world.

So yes, Prayer changes things. Without a doubt!

We can truly not understand or comprehend how much of human history reflects God’s immediate intervention and how much reveals God working through human agents…however, we KNOW aspects of history are brought about by the means of God’s people praying. God works mightily through human agents.

CR Calvin - Calvin’s favorite example of this was in the book of Job. The Sabeans and the Chaldeans had taken Job’s donkeys and camels. Why? Because Satan had stirred their hearts to do so. But why? Because Satan had received permission from God to test Job’s faithfulness in any way he so desired, short of taking Job’s life.

So why had God agreed to such a thing? 1) to silence the slander of Satan, 2) to vindicate Himself, and 3) to vindicate Job from the slander of Satan. All of these resasons are perfectly rightous justifications for God’s actions.

The saying is true, “What the enemy meant for evil, God meant for good.”

This whole narrative is a testimony of that very thing. Notice that Satan did not do something supernatural to accomplish his ends. He chose human agents and stirred up these 2 groups to cause Job to blaspheme God. So God’s purposes were accomplished through their wicked actions.

These 2 groups were free to choose, but for them, as for us, freedom always means freedom within limits. We cannot confuse human freedom with human autonomy. There is conflict and contradiction in the idea of a “Sovereign God” and “Human Autonomy”…but there is not a conflict between “Divine Sovereinty” and “Human Freedom.”

What if these 2 groups in the book of Job repented and prayed, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” I am sure that Job’s animals would have not been stolen by them, but surely from someone else or another group.

What I am trying to say is this: “There is freedom within limits, and within those limits, our prayers can change things.” How could we ever fail to participate in such a privledge?

Prayers of Jesus...

The Scriptures tell us that Elijah, through prayer, kept the rain from falling. He was not dissuaded from praying by his understanding of divine sovereignty.

Possibly no human being has ever had a more profound understanding of that divine sovereignty than Jesus Christ. I cannot recall any man who prayed more fiercely and more effectively.

Even in Gethsemane, He requested an option, a different way. When the request was denied, He bowed to the Father’s will.

MP - This is the very reason we pray! We believe that God has it within His power to order things according to His purpose.

This is what sovereignty is all about! ordering things according to God’s purposes!

So again, does prayer change God’s mind? No. Does prayer change things? Yes, of course.

CR

The problem is that we are not all that righteous, so what prayer most often accomplishes is changing the wickedness and hardness of our own hards, and aligning it with God’s.

That alone, would be reason enough to pray!

CR Jonathan Edwards, “Works of JE” - “ With respect to God, prayer is but a sensible acknowledgement of our dependence on him to his glory. As he hath made all things for his own glory, so he will be glorified and acknowledged by his creatures; and it is fit that he should require this of those who would be subjects of his mercy … [it] is a suitable acknowledgement of our dependence on the power and mercy of God for that which we need, and but a suitable honor paid to the great Author and Fountain of all good.

With respect to God, prayer is but a sensible acknowledgement of our dependence on him to his glory. As he hath made all things for his own glory, so he will be glorified and acknowledged by his creatures; and it is fit that he should require this of those who would be subjects of his mercy … [it] is a suitable acknowledgement of our dependence on the power and mercy of God for that which we need, and but a suitable honor paid to the great Author and Fountain of all good.

With respect to ourselves, God requires prayer of us … Fervent prayer many ways tends to prepare the heart. Hereby is excited a sense of our need … whereby the mind is more prepared to prize [his mercy] … Our prayer to God may excite in us a suitable sense and consideration of our dependence on God for the mercy we ask, and a suitable exercise of faith in God’s sufficiency, so that we may be prepared to glorify his name when the mercy is received.”

R. C. Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things?, vol. 3, The Crucial Questions Series (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2009), 17–18.

Ending Application, reiterated from introduction?

Does Prayer Change Things? Chapter One: The Place of Prayer

The neglect of prayer is a major cause of stagnation in the Christian life. Consider the example of Peter in Luke 22:39–62. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to pray, as was His custom, and told His disciples, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” The disciples fell asleep instead. The next thing Peter did was try to take on the Roman army with a sword; then he denied Christ. Peter did not pray, and as a result he fell into temptation. What is true of Peter is true of all of us: we fall in private before we ever fall in public.

Does Prayer Change Things? Chapter One: The Place of Prayer

Is there a right and wrong time for prayer? Isaiah 50:4 talks about the morning as the time when God gives the desire to pray on a daily basis. But other passages give times of prayer during all hours of the day. No part of the day is set apart as more sanctified than another. Jesus prayed in the morning, during the day, and sometimes all night long. There is evidence that He had a time set aside for prayer; however, considering the relationship Jesus had with the Father, we know that communion between them never stopped.

First Thessalonians 5:17 commands us to pray without ceasing. This means that we are to be in a continual state of communion with our Father.

Prayer, then, is central and crucial in the life of the Christian. Let us look further into this vital but neglected and misunderstood Christian discipline.

Ending

Does Prayer Change Things? The Prayers of the Son of God

All that God does is for His glory first and for our benefit second. We pray because God commands us to pray, because it glorifies Him, and because it benefits us.